CHAPTER XXIX
THE BUBBLE RISES
It was early dawn when Winn stepped from his train and into theceaseless babel of the city. Market wagons were crowding the streets,the army of workers hurrying in every direction, newsboys shouting,humanity elbowing and pushing, draymen seemingly ready to run overhim,--and this was his welcome back into the monster hive he had leftthree months before. What a contrast to Rockhaven!
Then to a hotel, a bath, a barber; and, finally, when he had madehimself somewhat more in keeping with the well-groomed if heartless cityfolk that he must now meet, he secluded himself in a corner of a diningroom, where he breakfasted behind a morning paper. He first turned tothe stock page, fully expecting to see the name "Rockhaven" staring himin the face; but he did not. Then his eye ran down the column ofquotations until, among the unlisted securities, it rested on"Rockhaven," thirteen bid and fourteen asked. And strange to say, thethirteen seemed significant; and now he looked elsewhere, feeling surethat he would find the Rockhaven Granite's Company's advertisement, butfailed. There were others equally alluring, and to his mind equallydeceptive,--oil, mining, development, building, and every other sort ofscheme confronting him, each promising safe and sure returns andassuring the reader in fervid language that "now is the time to invest."And so eager were these swindlers to catch the unwary, that some offeredstock for five cents a share, and non-assessable at that. Never beforehad Winn realized that schemers could descend to such pitiful methods asto issue, sign, and keep record of stock at a nickel a share! A trap tocatch even newsboys!
Turning in disgust to the column of market gossip, he read thefollowing: "Out of the multiplicity of investment organizations nowcrowding each other on all sides, a late one, the Rockhaven GraniteCompany, has forged to the front, its stock having crept up from one tofourteen dollars per share. But little is known of this company, andconservative investors believe the unusually rapid advance in its stocksolely due to manipulation."
In this great human hive and on the pages of this leading newspaper themillion-dollar scheme of Weston & Hill was only entitled to one line inthe list of quotations and a five-line news item.
And Winn thought himself and his troubles to be of small concern.
But his troubles enlarged rapidly when Jack Nickerson came to his roomlater on.
"Well, old man," said that cheerful sceptic, looking Winn over, "youdon't seem to have the odor of fish or any barnacles about you. You havehad a hair cut, I see; and now if you will visit a tailor, you will soonbe one of us again."
"Yes," laughed Winn, sarcastically, "I'm back where clothes make the manand put thieves and honest men on the same footing. But how is Rockhavencoming on?"
"It's not only coming, but it is here,--at least its only honestsupporter is," answered Jack. "Where is your old fiddling friend,Hutton? I expected you would bring him along to look us swindlers over."
"No, I left him down at Rockhaven at peace with all the world andphilosophizing on human depravity," answered Winn; "he would be as muchout of place here as you would be there."
"Well, you'd best send for him, or else all the stock you sold on theisland," asserted Nickerson, "and do it now. Matters have reached aclimax, as I wrote you, and Page wants to 'do' old Simmons. We have heldyour stock for that purpose, and we want all we can get besides. Thestreet is all short of it; and when they get scared, as they will soon,and Simmons tries to unload on them, we propose to be in the dance.Can't you wire the island?"
And Winn, once more in touch with the active life of the city, paused tocollect himself.
"I might wire Captain Roby," he said, "and reach the island to-night.But Roby has bought one hundred of this stock, and if he realized thesituation, he'd faint."
"Well, let him," answered Jack, "he'll come to quick enough when heunderstands his stock is worth fourteen dollars to-day and may not beworth one cent to-morrow. My belief is, if you wired him the price now,he'd point his old boat for the city and shovel coal under the boilerall the way himself."
"He wouldn't do that," replied Winn, "but he'd start for the island atonce, and in ten minutes every one would know it."
"Well, wire him," said Jack, "and do it now. Tell him to see yourphilosopher."
And Winn obeyed.
"Now," said Jack, "you are a prisoner here in this room until Page saysotherwise. If ever Simmons or Weston learns you are in the city, it willupset our plans. When your old barnacle arrives, we'll lock him up alsountil the crash comes, and then take you both into the exchange and letyou see the fun. He will be all the safer anyway. Some one might sellhim a gold brick."
"Not much," answered Winn, stoutly. "Jess Hutton can't be buncoed. Hewas keen enough to see through Weston the moment he set foot in hisstore, while it took me three months to do it."
"Well, you're getting you eye teeth cut slowly," laughed Jack, "and in ayear or two you'll know sheep from goats. I'm sorry you can't go to callon Ethel Sherman this evening, but you can't. It's just as well, forwhen she hears you have come out on top of Rockhaven and are worth a fewthousand, she'll receive you with more warmth. She is back from themountains, brown as an autumn leaf and looking out of sight. If I didn'tknow she was the most heartless and selfish hypocrite ever clad inpetticoats, I'd make love to her myself."
And Jack Nickerson, the inveterate scoffer at all things, took himselfaway.
That day Rockhaven was bid up to twenty, the short interest more thandoubled, and the two arch conspirators, Weston and Simmons, in theprivacy of the latter's office that night, held a love feast, nudgedeach other in the ribs, and laughed and joked while they smoked costlycigars, feeling sure a small fortune was within sight.
"I think it's best to let 'em bid it up to about forty," said Simmons,in a self-confident tone, and as though the street were within hisgrasp, "and then I'll feed those hungry bears granite chips by theshovelful."
"I flatter myself," he continued, "that I have engineered this deal asbut few could; and if this pious old hen, Mrs. Converse, attendsstrictly to foreign missions a few days longer, all will go well."
"No need to worry about her," responded Weston, whose spirits had alsorisen. "I, too, am fairly smooth, and have persuaded her to leave herstock with me to sell when the right time comes; and I have alsosubscribed five hundred toward a home for old ladies she is interestedin. That's the way I _converse_ with her."
And the two laughed at this poor pun.
Little did either realize that Nemesis, with three thousand shares inreserve, lurked in Broker Page's office, and that another thousand inthe pocket of the "fossil who fiddled," as Weston had once called JessHutton, would be added to that avenging club, inside of twenty-fourhours.
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